"That's not surprising. If you read the entire legal code then things won't get too bad, I think."

"I'm trying, but it's much longer and harder to understand than the laws back home."

"What are the laws like where you're from?"

"The imperial government is focused on keeping the peace - they enforce laws against assault and letting people loose who are a danger, you know, small children, damaged people - and the state I live in has some laws about truth in advertising and fraud and that kind of thing. It's - we have less allowance for breaking them, I think. They're written so people can get the gist without spending years learning the imperial language and there are very few of them and they're available for free. Ignorance isn't a defense, you shouldn't be allowed to come and go as you please if you don't know them. And if you break the law enough times, you'll be sold into slavery or killed. I am getting the impression that that's not how things are done here."

"It really isn't. Especially the slavery part."

"You sound like you object to that."

"To slavery? Yes. Almost everyone does."

"I have never met anyone who objected to slavery before. I mean not in general. A lot of people object to being slaves themselves."

"It's customary to take people's own opinions into account when considering decisions and policies that will affect those people, such as enslaving them."

"I think the idea is that once they're slaves you don't need to do that anymore."

"Their preferences will continue to exist even if others ignore them. Ignoring them is not a sign of a well developed sense of right and wrong, although most people don't outperform their societies if their societies say slavery is all right - many species have had to come to the opinion over time and some still aren't there."

"...None of your species have magic that lets you prevent your slaves from disobeying, do you?"

"There are probably psi techniques to do it but it's not widespread, no."

"It really isn't perfect but it's very helpful, I don't know how we'd keep very young children from causing dangerous magical accidents otherwise. I suppose if slavery just doesn't work for you it would be dangerous to try it."

"- a primary application of this is to enforceably command children not to use dangerous magic? That's nowhere near what anyone will think if you say 'slavery'. What with there not being much or any magic in most species."

"Children, criminals, people with brain damage, I... wait, do you mean most of the species you treat as legally people aren't capable of doing magic?"

"Yes? My psi abilities don't affect my ability to reason or make decisions or apprehend concepts, they're just an extra thing I can do."

"It's different where I'm from. We don't consider any species legally people if they can't do magic. But you were telling me people would expect I was talking about something else if I mentioned slavery?"

"Yes. Maybe you want the word 'captivity' or something for what you're doing when the purpose is to protect people from mishandled magic? 'Slavery' is more used when the owner extracts labor from the slave. I'm not sure what if any other features of the word led the translator to suggest it; maybe you have the same concept covering multiple niches."

"...In general, you wouldn't keep a slave and not get any use out of them. Otherwise the government couldn't profit from auctioning them."

"Okay, that's going to be a thing people object to."

"Well, I'm not in any position to enslave anyone here."

"A fact about which anyone you might be inclined to enslave would probably be relieved."

"No doubt. And I am relieved to realize you can't legally sell me when we get to a planet."

"- no. No, of course not, you'll be free to go as soon as there's anywhere to go."